University Sports Rivalries Provide Insights on Coalitional Psychology : Territorial Context Influences Reactions to Vocal Signals of Allegiance.

Sports are an excellent venue for demonstrating evolutionary principles to audiences not familiar with academic research. Team sports and sports fandom feature dynamics of in-group loyalty and intergroup competition, influenced by our evolved coalitional psychology. We predicted that reactions to expressions signaling mutual team/group allegiance would vary as a function of the territorial context.